Skin and Bones
by RealWinchesterGirl95
Summary: New girl Harlow Mark moves to Beacon Hills and after spending only a day with her Stiles figures out her big secret. But she thought she hid it so well? Tumblr!Girl inspired. Warning for Eating Disorders and Panic Attacks.
1. Chapter 1

"Class, this is Harlow Mark. She is new to Beacon Hills and I expect you all to be warm and welcoming." I waited patiently for the principle of my new high school to finish introducing me. He turned to me and gave me a head nod, which I thought was odd and he walked out. I was left standing at the front of the classroom. I gave a small, shy wave to the class.

"Well, Harlow. It's nice to meet you, however, class has already begun so please take a seat." He gestured to the only empty seat in the class room. "Stiles," the kid next to me spastically looked up to the teacher, the cap from his highlighter was in his mouth. He puffed up his cheeks and blew out the cap.

"Yeah, coach?"

"Ugh, Stiles. Your very existence annoys me. But, catch up the new girl." I thought that he was totally ignoring me but after a couple minutes of frantic writing and highlighting in his textbook and on post-it-notes and sticking those to the pages he reached over and stole my textbook off my desk before replacing it with his own a few seconds later. I mouthed a 'thanks' to him and started to attempt to read his scribble. At first I didn't understand any of it, it just looked like a bunch of crazy to my. It was just a bunch of meaningless words until I saw one of the smaller post-it's and in large letters it said 'ECONOMICS'. I smiled to myself. When the bell finally rung I closed his textbooks and stood to give it back.

"Nah, keep it for the weekend." He offered.

"Thanks." I swung my bag over my shoulder and slipped his book inside.

"Just make sure you bring it back next class. So, where's your next class?" I pulled the slip of paper schedule out of my bag and handed it to him.

"Do we have any other classes together?" I patiently waited for him to look over my schedule.

"I have most of the same classes but not the same schedule. Sorry." He Apologized, handing the folded up paper back to me. "So your next class is going to be straight down the hall and then make the right and it's should be the first door on your... Uhhh..." He was pointing his finger down in the direction he was telling me to go and squinted his eyes while tilting his head from side to side. "Left." He finally declared.

"Thanks. And uh... thanks for the notes too." I made my way down the hall and to my next class. Before I turned the corner I looked back at Stiles who was still standing there. He waved.

When the bell rung for lunch I asked my teacher for directions to the library. I had only been to three classes and already the pile of catch-up work I had to do was a mile high. When I finally reached the library, after getting lost twice, I opened the door and let a couple other students in ahead of me when I heard my name being called.

"Hey! Hey, Harlow! Wait up!" I turned to see a spastic Stiles weaving through the crowd of students that filled the hallway. When he finally reached me I let go of the door handle and backed away, making room for other students to pass by and enter the library.

"Are you ADHD? Because I have a ton of friends back home who have ADHD and you guys kinda act the same." He looked at me a little bewildered for a few seconds.

"Uhh... yeah. Actually I do. Anyways, you are coming to lunch with me and my friends. They tend to want to meet the new kids." I stared at him for a moment. I was planning on spending as many lunches as possible in the library, avoiding the cafeteria as much as possible.

"Actually, I have a ton of catch-up work that I need to get started. So I was planning on working through lunch." I turned and started making my way through the threshold of the library when Stiles grabbed my elbow and dragged me out. "Dude, what the hell?"

"Tell you what, if you come to lunch with my friends and me then I'll drive you home and on our way we can stop at my house and I can give you all the notes you need and you can just copy them. How does that sound?" I contemplated this for a few seconds.

"That sounds like a bribe," I commented, testing the waters. He shrugged and bobbed his head around a few times.

"It may be a bribe. So what do you say?" Without replying to him I stalked off in the direction I was hoping was the cafeteria.

"Just so you know, I'm only doing this for the notes." I told him.

"Just so you know, I'm only doing this to make sure you're human." I looked at him like he was crazy. Of course I'm human. What else would I be? I followed him to a table with a couple other guys and a few girls. "Harlow this is Kira, Malia, Scott, Lydia and Liam. Guys this is Harlow, the new girl I was telling you about."

"Harlow, that's an interesting name." Lydia was the first to speak. "I like your socks." She smiled at me. My socks cam up over my knee and covered half my thigh. The end of my dress a few inches above that.

"I was named after my grandfather." The group tried and failed to hide their smirk.

"So," Stiles gestured for me to take the seat between him and Scott. "where are you from?" Everyone started pulling out their lunches from their bags.

"Uh, Texas. My moms job transferred her here." I pulled out some math homework, the only class Stiles and I weren't in the same level, and started to work on it.

"Where's your lunch?" Stiles nudged my arm with his elbow and gestured to the paper I was working on.

"First day nerves. I can never eat with a nervous stomach." I lied smoothly, clutching my pen tightly in my hand. Stiles looked over my shoulder at Scott who was shaking his head.

"Tell you what, if you eat half my sandwich I won't blackmail you over the notes." I started chewing on the end of my pen, thinking this over.

"What is that, Turkey?" Stiles nodded. "Well no can do buddy. I'm a vegetarian." I saw him once again look over my shoulder at Scott and I could only assume he was shaking his head again, like last time. Then he pulled out a zip-lock bag of carrots and placed them in front of me.

"Here, eat these." I was tempted to tell him that I have a carrot allergy but decided against it when he gave me a near death glare.

"Okaayyy." I drawled out. If there are 70 calories in one cup then there are proximity about 63 calories in the bag so if I ate half the bag that would mean it would come to about 32 calories. But if I ate the whole bag and I purged then Stiles would be happy and leave me alone and I would be at zero for the day. Maybe if I just slowly munch on them till the bell rings then he'll leave me alone about it. "Are these organic?" I picked up a carrot and eyed it carefully. After a few seconds I realized that the whole group had gone quiet. I looked up to find everyone staring at me.

"Um, no? We don't really do a whole lot of organic's in Beacon Hills." I nodded before putting the carrot halfway in my mouth and biting it in half. "Did you do a lot of organic's in Texas?"

"Yeah, I mentioned earlier that a lot of my friends have ADHD and something that helps with that is organic food so we all decided to go organic and convince our parents too." After I had made sure to carefully chew the carrot thirty-five times and swallowed I popped the other half in my mouth. This was going to be a long lunch.

Stiles had told me to meet him by his jeep after school, which is exactly where I waited. For ten minuted before he finally showed up.

"Hey, sorry I had to talk to Scott about something. You ready?" He pulled my door open and gestured for me to get in. We had been driving for five minutes when he finally spoke.

"So, a vegetarian." I nodded. "How hard is that?" I didn't even have to give the answer any thought.

"Not hard at all. Meat is disgusting. It's not because I don't want it it's because I hate the taste of meat." Which wasn't a lie. I do hate the taste. "It makes me feel like vomiting."

"But I mean it's got to be hard," he looked over at me for a second.

"Watch the road."

"So many great meals are made with meat. Some don't even taste like meat. And what, you don't eat those either?" I was beginning to feel like I was being interrogated.

"Well, Stiles, there's a lot of foods that I don't like."

"Is that why you're so skinny? Because you don't like a lot of foods?"

"I'm just a picky eater." I defended.

"A picky eater that doesn't eat?"

"You don't know what you're talking about. Can you just keep you're eyes on the road, please?" He kept looking over at me and I didn't like it.

"Just admit what you can't admit to anyone else." this conversation was making me dizzy. Or maybe I was the lack of food. The last time I had eaten mom and I were just leaving Texas. The funny thing is I can go days without food if I'm not thinking about it. But when people keep bringing it up it's like my brain realizes that it's starved and I can't help but feel it.

"And what's that?" My chest was starting to feel tight, my anxiety climbing. I could feel it. The panic attack building in my chest. I kept chanting in my head 'Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it.'

"Har, answer me this. Do you have an eating disorder?" the air in the car got tense. And that's when it hit me.

"Pull over." I told him. My brain pleading with him.

"Harlow, we're like two minutes from my house."

"Pull... over." my breathing was coming out in gasps. The tightness in my chest was becoming too much and I couldn't help but feel trapped. Stiles, realizing what was happening, pulled over and slammed on he breaks. I yanked on the handle and threw myself into the grass. Staying on my hands and knees. Stiles appeared at my side, he was saying something but the pounding if my heart was so loud and I was so dizzy that I couldn't concentrate on what he was saying. After a moment my arms got too weak to hold myself up. I laid down on my side in the grass, which was still damp from the morning rain. It was cool on my feverish cheek.

Out of nowhere Stiles' face came into view. He was laying on his side in the grass too. He was still talking but I was even harder now than before to hear him. "Harlow!" He called now, louder than before. "Hold your breath, I know it sounds stupid but it'll help." I closed my eyes and did my best to hold my breath. After a couple attempts at holding my breath I finally got it.

I let out the breath that I had been holding in a and rolled onto my back, breathing heavily. "Sorry." I breathed. My eyelids were becoming heavy much like they did after every panic attack. I knew it would be only a matter of time before I fell asleep.

"Hey, hey. No, don't apologize. And definitely don't fall asleep on the side of the road." He got to his knees and crouched over me and put his hands under my arms, lifting me up. "Let's get back in the jeep." He lifted me into the jeep and buckled me in before closing my door. By the time he walked around the jeep and got in I was already asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey! So I came up with a second chapter and I wanted to get it out before the weekend was over. I hope you enjoy**!

"Come on." I whispered to myself. I was leaning over the toilet with my fingers down my throat, gagging. Mom had made pasta for dinner and I ate a whole portions worth. Too much food, my brain screamed at me. I shoved my fingers back down and gagged again. This time pasta started to come up but too much pasta was forcing itself out and I started choking on it, gagging on the piece of pasta still in my throat till it came up and I spit it out. I breathed hard for a few seconds before starting the process all over again.

When I was finally done, I reached up and flushed the toilet before leaning over and starting the shower. It was Sunday night and I was totally drained. I didn't have energy for school the next day. However, I did managed to get almost all my catch-up work done. And the little I did have left I could do in the library at lunch tomorrow.

I used the last of the strength I had left to undress and drag myself into the tub and I sat there for a while, gaining my strength back, under the spray of water. I realized too late that I hadn't taken my makeup off and my eyes started burning from the running mascara. I squeezed my eyes shut and did my best to keep it out of my eyes while I reached under the shower curtain and fumbled around for my towel that I left lying on the floor. I turned around so that the spray of water only hit my back and pulled the edge of the towel into the shower and rubbed my eyes. I pulled the pink towel away from my eyes and saw two big black smears on it.

I put the towel back on the floor and quickly washed my hair and shaved before jumping out and wrapping myself in the same pink towel. I decided to wash my face to get the remainder of the makeup off and when I wiped the fogged up mirror I was met with blood shot eyes. "Shit." It wasn't the kind of blood shot that would go away over night. It was the kind that lasted for a few days. I dropped my towel and examined my body. Even though my collar bones and my rib cage were visible and my hip bones jutted out, all I could see was fat. Fat. Fat. FAT. I stepped on the scale. 109.7. Fuck.

'You no good piece of shit, how do you expect anyone to ever love you if you're just a pile of fat!?' My brain was screaming at me. I wanted to cry. I was tempted to pick up the plotted plant in the corner of the bathroom and crash it into the mirror, shattering it.

Deciding that there was nothing I could do about it I secured my towel tightly around my fat body before opening the bathroom door and being blasted with cold air. I shivered. I plopped down on my bed, still only in my towel, thinking about Friday.

_I woke up groggy and disoriented. Looking around I didn't recognize where I was, I didn't recognize anything. I was lying on a bed that I had never seen before. I looked at the clock and saw that it was already 6:04. Not knowing what else to do I stood up and made my way into the hall. I had no idea where I was going so I just continued down the hall till I came to the stairs. _

_"Hey." I looked up at Stiles, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs. "I was just about to go get pizza with the gang. You wanna go?" I knew it was a test but I didn't care. I mean I had just woken up in his bed for Christ sake! _

_"Actually, it's kinda late. My mom will be wondering where I am. So I need to get home." He stared at me for a while before nodding his head up and down in a weird bouncy motion._

_"Okay. Okay, you can keep lying to me but you can't lie to yourself now can you." Death eyes were being exchanged._

_"I have dinner with my mom in an hour." I lied smoothly. There was a few heart beats of silence before he walked to the front door and opening it, motioning for me to go through it. The Jeep came to a complete stop in my drive way but before I could open the door Stiles finally spoke._

_"Aft-after my mom died, I used to get panic attacks all the time." _

And that was it. I opened my door, got out and walked into my empty house. My mom had taken up the available Dean of Medicine position. Meaning I am home alone. A lot. But Sunday evenings is her day off. Hence the pasta dinner.

Beep beep beep beep

"Ugh." I groaned as I rolled over to turn my alarm off. When a cool breeze hit my ass I realized that I never put my pjs on and slept naked. I smirked to myself, finding the situation funny. Opening my closet I realized that I was so busy doing catch-up work that I didn't do any laundry. After a couple minutes of just standing in front of my closet I turned to check the time. School started in half an hour.

Quickly I pulled out my last pair of clean leggings and an old sweater of my dads and some boots. Throwing my curly hair up in a messy ponytail I grabbed my makeup bag and car keys before running into the living room. I grabbed a couple of water bottles from the kitchen and my school bag off the counter before running out to my car. I now had twelve minutes to get to school.

The bell rang right as I ran into Coaches class. I plopped down into my desk and dropped my bag onto the floor and pulled Stiles' textbook out.

"Here." I held out the text book to him. He took it and replaced it with mine but didn't say anything. He did a double take at my face and slid back in his chair, scoffing. And that's when I remembered. Broken blood vessels. I hadn't had time to do my makeup yet and concealed it and I knew that you would be able to see them. Clear as day. I slipped my makeup bag out of my bag and got all the way through my makeup before Coach yelled at me to put it away and focus on the class work. I smiled back.

"So you're pissed at me?" I whispered. We were doing partner work and for some reason Coach was making Stiles my class buddy. He didn't say anything. "Stiles! Come on man, you can't be mad at me. I didn't do anything."

"Why can't you just admit you have a problem!?" He exclaimed, loudly. The whole class stopped the work they were doing at looked over at us.

"H-he's referring to the-uh-the problems." I picked up the worksheet we were working on. "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have a problem." My voice lower.

"Oh yeah?" He leaned forward so that we were only about a foot apart. "How about that panic attack? Huh? You wanna tell me about that? Because that's not normal."

"I forgot to take my anxiety medication, okay?" I looked back down at my worksheet and started to copy text from the text book straight to the paper. It wasn't a lie. I had forgotten it yesterday. But I mean, I forget to take it most days.

"Anxiety medication." He tapped his pen on his desk. "You must be on pretty high doses of the stuff huh?" I nodded as if to say 'duh'. "Well, did you take them today?"

"Ah shit." I threw my head back, looking at the ceiling. I knew I was forgetting something this morning but I just couldn't put my finger on it. The bell rang then and we parted ways.

By lunch time I really didn't feel like human interaction and made my mind up to skip the rest of my classes. As I walked out of the school building I saw Stiles and his group of friends making their way to their cars too. What was this, annual skip day?

"Har-Harlow!" I was just about to get into my car when Stiles started calling for me. "Hey, so. We," he pointed to his group of friends, "are going to the diner for lunch. Wanna come?"

"Actually I was just going to go home."

"Well that sounds boring. Come with us." He held the top of my door so I couldn't close it.

"I can't. I have to go home. I have to take my meds." It wasn't a total lie. I did have to take them but I wasn't going to tell him that I wasn't going to take them and that I was actually going home to look at proana pictures on Tumblr. "Anyways, my social skills aren't up to par right now so..."

"Okay, right, alright. But just remember while you're sitting in your room doing homework and avoiding this," he gestured to my body, "thing you're doing to yourself. Remember," he lowered himself to whisper to me, "people care."

"Alright. Thanks, Dr. Phil. I'll see ya tomorrow."

Since we had moved to Beacon Hills my mom had been trying to convince me to volunteer at the hospital. Since I had been using my lunch time to do my homework by Wednesday I was caught up and totally bored. I rolled over on my bed and looked at the clock.

3:31 p.m.

I picked up my phone and speed dialed my moms office. "Hey, honey. Is everything okay?" My mom greeted me, recognizing my cell number.

"Yeah, everything's fine. I was just wondering if the pediatrics ward needs a volunteer worker tonight? I finished my homework and have nothing else to do."

"Oh darling this is wonderful!" My mom exclaimed. She was alway so proper when she was at work. "Of course! How soon will you be here?" I hopped up from my bed and grabbed my bag and car keys.

"I'm leaving right now. I'll be there in ten."

"Okay, when you get here I'll have the head nurse on the pediatric floor, Mrs. McCall, waiting for you." We said our goodbyes and hung up and before I knew it I was being greeted by a pretty, dark haired, lady.

"Harlow?" She had a clipboard clutched to her chest like you see in all those doctor tv shows. Not that I should have expected anything else. I practically grew up in hospitals all across Texas.

"Hi, Mrs. McCall. What can I do?" She carefully eyed me for a few seconds and made a face like realization had just hit her before she said,

"Come with me and I'll get you set up."

By the time 9:00 rolled around I was sitting on the floor in the common room playing Go-Fish with a little girl named Morgan.

"Do you have any twos?" Her six year old voice asked.

"Go fish." She drew from the deck and her eyes lit up and she got excited. She grabbed a card from her hand and put both that card and the new card down revealing two twos.

Half way through the game I had laid down on my stomach to be more comfortable. "Harlow, what are you still doing here?" Mrs. McCall asked coming around the corner.

"Playing Go-Fish with Morgan." I answered, looking up.

"The other volunteers left two hours ago." She looked at me like she was expecting me to say something but I simply just shrugged. "Is your mom working late tonight?"

"Yup." I looked back at my hand of cards. "Got and queens?" I turned my attention back to The game.

"Nuh huh." Morgan shook her head and loose golden blonde curls fell into her face and she used a pudgy hand to tuck them behind her ear. "Fours?" I pulled three fours from my deck and handed them to her.

"Well, I'm heading home to have dinner with my son. How about you come have dinner with us?" The thing about lying when you have an eating disorder is that it becomes natural and becomes like word vomit. Most the time I don't even realize that is happening till it's too late.

"I made dinner before I came so that I'd have something when I get back. But thanks."

"Okay." She turned and walked away and I turned back to my game.

Later that night I was laying in bed, wide awake, waiting to hear the lock on the front door unlock, signaling my moms return. By 12:09 she had yet to return and I couldn't sleep. Even when I was little my nanny would sit up with me till my mom got home and then I would pretend that I was asleep when she came into my room to check on me.

I huffed out a sigh and got up from my bed and walked into the kitchen to grab another bottle of water. I don't allow myself to look at food anymore because if I did I would eat everything. I wouldn't be able to stop. I would stuff my face till eventually my stomach tore open and my guts and half chewed food lay on the kitchen floor, next to my body.

The soft pitter-patter of my feet on the hardwood floors was the only sound in the house as I made my way back to my room. This time when I got to my room I shut my door and I saw a note that my mom left on the mirror hanging on the back of the door. The note read 'Ballet class tomorrow at 3:30' and the address was listed below. I had been in ballet since I was a toddler and I had such a strong love hate relationship with it.

Madam Pierre was always telling me how beautiful I moved but how could someone so fat and disgusting be beautiful? But I would smile and say 'thank you' and acted like I had buckets and buckets of self confidence. My mom had promised me that she would find a place for me to dance when we moved here but I thought that she would forget. She didn't.

I walked to the corner of my room where the last of my unpacked boxes were and pulled the one marked 'ballet' out and set it in the middle of my desk and pulled out my tights and leotard. I put them in my dance bag and put my dance bag next to my school bag. I would be going there straight there after school and wouldn't have time to come back for it.

I stripped off my dirty cloths and put them I the full hamper before taking the hamper and putting the cloths in the wash. I slipped on one of my dad's old tee shirts and crawled into bed, begging sleep to come. Tomorrow is a new day.

I hope you guys enjoyed! Don't be scared to let me know what you think and what you would like to see happen in the future!

XOXOX


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer - I own nothing. TW belongs to MTV.**

**Big thanks to fanfiction-obsessed101, Hurricane.'97, chels200, and Lisa Lobes for reviewing, favoriting, and following The New Girls Secret.**

**If you ever wish to see Harlow's outfits, her studio or room, you can do so by searching Harlow-Mark on polyvore.**

**Chapter 3**

In health class you learn thing and sometimes you don't. Sometimes they teach you stuff that you already know. Like today I didn't learn that 95% of individuals suffering from an eating disorder are between the ages of 12 and 25. And that more than 50% of teenage girls and nearly 33% of teenage boys admit to using unhealthy methods to control their weight. And the last thing I didn't learn.

Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any illness.

Dying hasn't ever been something that scares me, in fact, the idea is welcoming. I was once again sitting in Finstocks room for health class. He had a unique way of teaching the class which involved screaming at us not to do drug, drink alcohol or have sex till we are in our mid thirties. Today was different though, no yelling. It was kind of uncomfortable being in a class where he wasn't yelling and screaming at us and I swear every few minutes he would giving me these side ways glances that I wasn't supposed to notice. So when the bell finally rung I was quite relieved and made a B-line for the door and headed straight for my locker.

"Knock it off, Stiles." I mumbled. I had only gotten two hours of sleep and school was especially brutal, ballet was killing me and Stiles was driving me crazy.

"Come on, Harlow. Just come out with the group. It won't be torturous, I swear! Everyone will behave." Stiles promised. I stopped and ran my hand through my hair. I had left it down today and it was kinda a mess.

"I already have plans." I told him, matter-of-fact. He scoffed and rolled his head a little, clearly annoyed.

"Right. Plans. Okay, and what would those be?" He shoved his hands in his pocket and leaned back on the lockers next to mine.

"Ballet." He looked taken aback for a moment before blinking a few times before remembering how to speak.

"Ballet?"

"Yeah, you know. Leotards and tutus and lots of twirling girls." I shoved everything into my locker and pulled out my history text book. "And before you ask, I can't come to lunch today, I have a test next period and I didn't really get to study and no offense to your friends but they aren't exactly quiet."

"You dance?" I looked up at him.

"Are you really still on that? That was like a whole minute ago. But yeah, I've been dancing since I was a toddler." I started walking down the hall towards the back doors before Stiles stopped me.

"Where you going? Library's that way." He pointed behind us, in the opposite direction. I looked at the crowd of people filing into the library and squinted.

"Yeah well, it's more quiet on the lacrosse bleachers than in a library with three dozen kids working on group projects." He nodded his head and we said our goodbyes, parting ways.

It had been three weeks since I started ballet and I couldn't decided if I loved it or hated it. I love dancing. I feel free when I dance. But I hate the mirrors. My new teacher was harder than any of my last ones and I hated it, she's always ridiculing the girls bodies and judging them. _'If you wish to be my muse than you must be perfect, you girls aren't perfect. You MUST be perfect!'._ The studio was your average ballet studio. Walls and walls of mirrors, Barr's, skinny girls sweating in their pointe shoes and leotards. It even had the wall where the studio side was a mirror but the waiting rooms side was a window. It made me feel uncomfortable to know that people we're watching me dance, when I'm most vulnerable, and I wouldn't see their reactions.

The thing that bothered me most about everything was that she never told me how bad I look in a leotard or how awful I am like she did with the other girls. Which means that she didn't care. That I'm a lost cause. That I'm not worth her time, I'm not worth correcting.

After dozens of balançoire's, emboité's, entrechat's, plié's and soubresaut's class was over. Ballet was Monday through Friday and depending on what day it is tells you what position you work in.

Monday = First

Tuesday = Second

Wednesday = Third

Thursday = Fourth

Friday = Fifth

We spend half the class working on Barr and the other half doing floor work and whatever routine the instructor decides to yell out to us. My feet were getting back to looking ugly and were now almost always bloody and calloused from dancing pointe so much and the other day I forgot my slippers and Madam is weird about not letting us wear pointe shoes at the Barr so I had to dance barefoot at the Barr, which means that the skin on the bottom of my feet are more rough than normal.

The music stopped abruptly and Madam called for us to cool down and that class was over but before she left she informed us that auditions for _Clara_ were next week and that if we are planning on auditioning that we had a lot of work to do before we even came close to being ready for the audition let alone the actual performance. The thing about auditions here is that you have to partake in them because it's such a small town that there really aren't enough students at the dance studio to not partake in the production.

Only one other girl from ballet was from my school and most of them went to the girls private school and the couple of guys that were in the class went to the high school in the next town over. I plopped down on the floor and started taking off my pointe shoes and started packing up my stuff. When I stood up and took my first step I slipped and crashed down on my knees.

"Damn it." I muttered. One of the blisters had busted and was oozing blood all over the floor. "You've got to be kidding me." I reached into my bag and pulled out the hand towel I had and started wiping up the blood.

"Busted bluster?" A girl, Joan, asked. "I get those. Bloody." She reached into her bag and pulled a few things out of her bag while I stayed on my hands and knees scrubbing the blood off the floor. "Don't freak." She said. At first I didn't know what she was taking about but after a second she started applying ointment and a bandage to the hole on my toe while I cleaned the floor. If we weren't out of the studio within five minutes of class ending you get the lights shut off on you.

"Thanks." It felt awkward letting someone else take care of something even as little as a bloody toe but I didn't care. Point was we needed to get out of there. "Alright, let's go." I said when we were both finished. We raced down the stairs and out the front door. The ground was cold under my bare feet and I wiggled my toes against it. The only car left in the lot was mine. "Do you need a ride?"

"No, my mom will be here around six thirty." I looked at my watch. 6:04. I looked back up at her and faltered for a minute.

"That's in nearly half an hour. Come one. It's the weekend, I'll take you home." She smiled and followed me to my car. Joan instructed me how to get to her house and when we finally arrived I slumped back in my seat. "You live here?"

"Uh, yeah. Why?" I looked down the road.

"I live right down the street." I pointed a few houses down to the biggest house on our street. Her eyes widened a little. She started to get out of the car but I stopped her. "Hey, do you- uh- do you want a ride to school Monday? I don't normally ask but you are on the way... so," she looked at me and smiled.

"Yeah, that would actually be awesome. Here, give me your phone." I unlocked my phone and opened up a new contacts page for her and she quickly typed her name and number into my phone.

"See ya." I drove the rest of the way to my house and pulled into the garage. Moms car wasn't home but I wasn't surprised at all. I had finished my homework and decided to start setting up my ballet studio. On the main level we had a living room, kitchen, family room, dining room and breakfast nook. Mom had decided that the family room would be my ballet studio since it was the only room with hardwood floors. She had already ordered the mirrors and the Barr from my old studio was all in the basement. I looked at my phone again. 6:23. I unlocked it and scrolled through the contacts and stopped when I found his name.

I couldn't decided if I wanted to call or not but before I realized what I was doing I was hitting call and holding the phone up to my ear. _"H-hello?" _

"Stiles, hey. Uh, what are you doing tonight?"

_"Nothing why?"_ He sounded confused and I don't blame him. I never texted back or answered when he called let alone called him out of the blue.

"I have this project I'm working on but I need help lifting some of the boxes and carrying some stuff up from the basement. You up for a little manual labor?" There was a huff of breath on the other line. Like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

_"Uh, sure. Text me your address and I'll be over soon. I'm leaving now." _I hung up and texted him my address and waited the five minutes it took him to drive to my house. When the bell to the front door rung I raced down the stairs and practically ripped the door off its hinges.

"That was fast." I stepped aside and made room for him to pass by me. He followed me into the kitchen where I grabbed a couple water bottles from the fridge and tossed one to him before walking into my soon-to-be ballet studio. "There's boxes in the basement. I can't carry it on my own but I figured that the two of us together should be able to. He didn't say anything but just looked me up and down. I had a Toy Story sweatshirt on with burgundy shorts and socks that had a cats head at the toes and the cat was wearing a beanie and glasses. Then his eyes stopped on my face.

"You wear glasses?" I chuckled and set my unopened water bottle down in the middle of the empty room. "So this is your place huh?" His voice echoed around the room, bouncing off the walls.

"You ready?" He nodded and followed me down to the basement. There wasn't much down there so it was easy to find the pile of stuff my mom had ordered. Stiles seemed kind of uncomfortable and I wasn't sure if it was because of me or the big house.

_You make me wanna die_

_I'll never be good enough_

_You make me wanna die_

_And everything you love_

"Nice ringtone." Stiles snorted. I ignored him but hid my smirk.

"Hey, mom." I talked to her for a minute about how she wasn't going to be back till after midnight and to just order out for dinner or something. "Oh hey, did you order all this stuff for the studio?" When I got the confirmation from her I turned and noticed something. "Is that- did you get paint too?" I smiled. She had gotten two gallons of pointe shoe rose pink paint. I looked closer. "Satin finish? I didn't even know they had that in paint." After a few more words my mom and I hung up and Stiles grabbed the bucket of paint and I grabbed the rollers and paint brushes and everything else we would need.

"So how do you know how to paint?" Stiles was rolling the roller on the wall like I had instructed while I used a paint brush to do the trim.

"Well, with my mom being the Dean of Medicine and making a shit ton of money my dad decided to do what he loved and became a painter. Taught me everything I know. I painted the last house all by myself." I dipped the tip of the brush in the plastic cup of paint in my hand and went back to the trim.

"So does he still paint?" I faltered in my movement. He seemed to notice and he stopped rolling too to watch me.

"He died. Six months ago."

"Is that why you moved here?"

"Yeah, mom was waiting for a hospital to need a Dean so when the one here opened up she jumped on it. She doesn't make as much but she still makes more than enough and it was far enough away that she could escape."

"It's not far enough for you?" I turned to him and climbed down from the latter, I was finished on this wall and started to move the latter to the opposite wall to do the same.

"You can't outrun death." I mumbled. I guess he decided to leave it at that because for the next two hours we painted in near silence but somewhere around the thirty minute mark I put on my _Grease _CD and sang along. Loudly. Half way through _Grease Lightning _I stopped singing because Stiles had stopped painting and was just watching me. I ignored him and I went back to singing along and then the funniest thing happened. He started singing. His voice was actually pretty good but the face that it was my _Grease _CD he was singing along with is what I found funny and I didn't even bother to hide my smile as we continued to sing.

"Are you almost done?" Stiles had been holding up the floor to ceiling mirrors and I was using the little things that they came with to secure them to the wall. They were little white things looked like an L-shaped nail. I had no idea what it was but that's what the instructions said to use.

"Yeah," I said, securing the last nail into the wall. He let out an exaggerated sigh of relief and plopped down onto the floor. "Hey," I crouched down next to him. "we aren't done." I pulled him to his feet and he started trudging behind me.

"What else is there to do? I thought you said all we were doing was painting and hanging the mirrors?"

"Relax. There's just a loveseat and the Barr to take down. I looked at my watch. 10:20. "Oh god. I'm sorry. I totally forgot about dinner. How's Chinese sound?"

"Sounds good." When we got to my room he just stood in the doorway as if he didn't know if he was allowed in but he was just taking in my room. I looked around and tried to see my room the way he was seeing it. From my bright white walls to my palace bed to my Grand Nior chandelier hanging above it to my LexMod loveseat to my printers keyhole desk. I had let my mom pick everything out when we moved which means that it was expensive and more than likely one of a kind. His eyes landed on the ballet posters I had hanging on the double doors leading to my closet.

I opened one of the drawers to my desk and fished around for the Chinese takeout menu my mom had given me a couple weeks ago and like all menus they get shoved into the deepest part of my desk. "Here," I said, handing him the menu. "Pick out whatever you want, it's on my mom tonight." I smiled, holding up my bank card that was connected to her bank account.

When the food arrived forty minutes later the studio was done. We brought the Barr up from the basement and the loveseat down from my room. So we were sitting in the middle of the room eating. Well, I was pretending to eat. Taking a bite here and there. I was channeling my inner Cassie from Skins and did a lot of talking about nothingness. Meaningless words flowed from my mouth as I pretended to eat and watched as Stiles finished his orange chicken, stabbing the last piece with a single chopstick. I grabbed his empty containers that littered the floor in front of him and grabbed my full container and made my way to the kitchen. I put my leftovers in the fridge and put the empty containers in the recycling.

"Ah, an Eco-friendly ballet dancer." I smiled.

"Yeah, it's a real issue. Recycling." Stiles snorted. I pulled out a sticky-note and scribbled 'For you' on it before sticking it on the leftovers for my mom. I pulled a can of coke zero out and popped the can open. "You're welcome to whatever you want." I said, before leaving the room. I grabbed my dance bag from the hall and went back to the studio. It smelled like Chinese food and paint and the smells were messing with my brain I swear.

By the time Stiles returned to the room he had a regular coke in his hand and I couldn't help the automatic scrunching of my nose in disgust. "I have an audition next week that I don't want to partake in that I don't have a choice on. Madam says that we aren't ready to audition for it let alone perform in front of people." I rambled as I tied on my pointe shoes. I picked up my can of soda and handed it to Stiles before walking over to my phone and turned on some classical music before plugging it into the speakers in the wall.

"You can stay if you want," I told him over the volume of the music while I walked to the center of the room. "My mom won't be home for a couple more hours but it's getting late so I understand if you need to go." I closed my eyes to 'find my center', as my old teacher would say, and took a deep breath. The thing about the audition is that she wanted us to dance with our souls, not the routine. But instead of dancing from my soul I decided to just do some basic class thing. From glissade to assemblé to jeté to temps levé and so on till I forgot about Stiles and the audition and it was just me and the music. Jumping and twirling and leaping. By the time I was done, I was breathless. I looked over to Stiles and smiled.

"That was amazing." I sat down and started to untie the ribbons securing the dance shoes around my feet. "It was like watching a story being told. A really sad story. But it was beautiful." I tossed my shoes aside.

"What the hell are you talking about Stilinski." I looked down at my feet and saw the tape and bandage Joan had put on my toes had crimson seeping through it. I pulled the tape off and watched as it bled. Ugh. Fantastic.

"You're bleeding." He slipped off the loveseat and scooted next to me.

"Yup." I pulled my bag closer to me and fumbled around in it till I found my bandaids and started wrapping them around my toe. "You see a beautiful ballerina and the ballerinas see ugly feet and pain."

"Harlow? Honey I'm home. Are you up?" I looked to Stiles before looking back at my watch. 12:30. I had danced for about an hour and a half and it only felt like minutes.

"Yeah, mom. In the studio." I spun around on my butt so that I was facing the opening that led from the room I was sitting in to the rest of the house. I loved the open floor plans of these big houses. It makes you feel so free.

I heard her rattling around in the kitchen before she appeared. "Oh, hi." She said, looking a little confused. "I didn't realize Harlow had anyone over. I'm Jaclyn." Stiles got to his feet and shook my moms hand.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Stiles." She looked down at me and raised an eyebrow. "As much as I love to see you bringing friends over, it's late."

"Oh yeah, he helped me with the studio. And then I ordered dinner and we talked and I broke in the floor for a while. We just lost track of time. Sorry, won't happen again."

"Well, I'm going to bed. It was nice meeting you Stiles." And with that mom mom turned and left the room. Stiles let out a loud sigh and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Yeah, I should get going. It's late." I walked him to the door and we said our goodbyes and goodnights. I walked back into the studio and started cleaning up the trash from the bandaids and my pointe shoes. I stopped when my reflection caught my attention and I stood up straight and tightened my core to appear leaner. I let out a noise that was a cross between a sigh of disappointment and a grunt at my body. I couldn't look at myself longer than a few seconds before I has to look away with disgust. I wish I had claws to rip my fat off my bones.

I went into my bathroom and pulled my scale out of the cabinet where I kept it tucked away and stood on it. 106.4. I had only lost three pounds since moving to Beacon Hills. I swear this place was like a curse for me or something. I let out a frustrated grunt/yell but made sure I was quiet enough that I didn't disturb my mom. I angrily shoved the scale back into its little cubby hole and slammed the cabinet shut. I grabbed my ballet slippers and went back down stairs. I positioned myself at the Barr and began with Plié's and after a few hundred Plié's in various positions I pulled out my Pilates mat and began doing crunches. Around a hundred-thirty I lost count. When my watch read 2:58 I decided that it was about time that I go to bed. I flung my slippers to the middle of the room and turned off the lights before I made my way up the stairs.

When my cell phone dinged with a new text message. I found it odd that Joan had texted me so late... or... early?

_[Hey, just went for a 'midnight' run and saw ur light still on. U up?]_

I had texted her earlier in the night so that she would have my number and apparently 3:05 a.m. Is still am appropriate time for her to text.

{Yeah, just did a workout too. Late night energy, or what?}

_[Next time u can come on a run with me. 3 miles isn't much. Think u can handle?]_

{Of course I can handle. I put my studio together today... er... yesterday. Come over tomorrow and practice with me?}

_[2:30?]_

{Works for me.}

I plugged my phone in and next it sitting on my desk before stripping and sliding into bed.

"Hey, Harlow." Joan greeted, sauntering into my room. Her small frame gliding through my room like a... well... Ballerina. I groaned and pulled the covers over my head tighter. "Come on," she ripped the covers from around my. "We have plans remember?" I grumbled incoherently and rubbed at my eyes and yawned.

"What time is it?" Joan crawled over me to the other side of me bed and plopped down.

"Almost noon. I know we had plans for two-thirty but I got impatient. Your mom let me in." She plopped her head down on the pillow next to me. "Your room belongs to a princes. It's kinda weird. Like I don't want to mess anything up." I rolled over and put my head under my pillow.

"Ugh. Don't wanna get up." When I rolled over I ended up rolling towards Joan.

"Are you really one of those people that sleeps in a lacy bra and boy shorts?" I slightly moved the pillow from my head and peaked up at her. "Nice bones." I froze and held my breathable she ran a finger down my exposed spine. "Wanna see mine?" I propped myself up on my elbows and looked curiously at her as she got to her knees and pulled her shirt over her head. Every bone was visible, and every dip between the bones looked like they had been contoured, they were so deep. "Your secret. I can help." She slipped her shirt back over her head.

"What do you mean help?" I was starting to panic a little. I sat up and looked her dead in the eyes.

"Now, now, Harlow. Not like that." My panic subsided a little as she continued. "You see, I had a mentor during my first couple years. She made me stronger, she taught me her ways and how to survive on my own."

"What are you saying?"

"Sometimes, to loose what you hate the most, you have to gain a friend." The thing I wanted to loose the most was the fat that disgust me every time I looked at myself. And the new friend, Joan, she was going to teach me how to do it.

**So idk where this came from but here it is anyways! I hope you all enjoyed this! And remember, I'm always open for ideas and or advice!**

**XOXOX**


	4. Chapter 4

Friday filled my stomach with anxiety.

Joan had been over early every day this week with a steaming cup of black coffee and diet pills or appetite suppressants. She would pull out an outfit for me while I sat and drank my coffee.

"So," Joan was currently going through my closet. "This Stiles guy. Are you going to let him be your friend?" she pulled a daisy circle skirt jumper out of my closet and threw it at me, it landed on my head. "I mean I've seen the way he watches you at school. Clearly he knows something." I sighed.

"I don't know." I pulled the skirt off my head. "Like I said the other day, I think he's onto me. And he helped me with the studio but... there's just something about his group of friends. Like they're hiding something. And I have a feeling that I don't want to know what it is." she just scoffed at my ridiculousness and threw a black a black cut-out crop top tank at my head again.

"I'm sure you're just over exaggerating... tights?" I pointed to my dresser.

"Top drawer." I took a sip of my coffee. "I'm telling you, Jo. Something's up with them." she pulled floral fish net tights and threw them at me but they landed short of the bed and landed on the floor a couple feet from the bed. She disappeared in the bottom of my closet an reappeared with my chunky, black, platform boots. Even though she was dressing me in my usual grunge with a touch of girly, her outfit was totally opposite of mine. She had on a pink lace cropped tube top, a soft pink blazer, a carven mini skirt and light pink suede pumps that tide the whole outfit together.

"You're going to get a headache." she pointed out. "Stop worrying. I'm sure it's nothing. Now," she plopped down next to me, "have your breakfast and get ready for school." she held her hand out, palm up, with a couple different pills in the middle. I picked up the pills and popped them into my mouth, washing them down with the last of my coffee.

"Did you do your weigh in this morning?" Jo asked, as we made our way to the car an hour later. We threw out ballet bags in the back along with some extra gym cloths for our run that would take place during lacrosse practice, during free period.

"104." I winked at her. My goal weight was 100 and once I was there I planned to stay there.

"I told you I would get you out of your rut!" she exclaimed, I smiled back at her. Sometimes I feel like she gets envious of me for weighing less than she does even though she's several inches taller than me.

She weighs in at 116.

"I'll meet you in the girls locker room at free period." she said, before leaving me standing alone at my locker. I looked up just in time to see Stiles and his girlfriend, Malia, kissing before she walked towards me.

"So, Stiles thinks there's something wrong with you and seems to think that since I'm a girl that you'll tell me what that something is." I stood there for a minute and put on my best 'I don't know what you're talking about' face and stayed silent for a minute.

"If you lie to me," she said knowingly. "I'll know." her face was so serious that she kinda scared me. I opened my mouth to speak but was thankfully, literally, saved by the bell.

"I've got to get to class." I excused myself, before making a quick exit and going to my class.

Stiles P.O.V.

During our free period Scott and I were on the lacrosse field getting ready for practice when I noticed Harlow and her friend were getting ready for their run. Every day during practice they would do laps around the field. I watched as they stretched and got ready for their run.

"Scott, hey, man. What are they saying?" he tilted his head towards the girls and listened carefully for a few seconds, before giving me a strange look.

"They're talking about you and Malia." there was another pause before he continued. "She thinks you're being too nosed and that you need to lay off. She said 'I don't take a big interest in his personal life, so why is he bugging me?'." I knew Scott was waiting for an explanation of what they were talking about. I had only briefly mentioned in passing about my concern of her eating disorder and never brought it up again.

"I can't lay off, she's going to kill herself." I looked back at Harlow. Her friend held out a Baggie with half an orange in it and I couldn't help but wonder if that would be all she eats today. I had noticed in class earlier that he had been looking thinner than she already had been when she started at our school a couple months ago. Instead of eating the oranges they she put it in her bag. They did a few more stretches before taking off at a steady pace around the field.

"McCall! Stilinski! Get your asses on the field!" I followed Scott to the back of the drills line and waited for my turn.

"Stiles," Scott started hesitantly. "maybe right now isn't the best time to be meddling in someone else's personal like." he gestured to Liam. "I think our hands are a little full at the minute. Don't you?"

"Do you think he's going to tell anyone? I mean the whole, 'we're brothers now' and 'the bite is a gift' thing kinda freaked him out. Hell, it freaked me out and I've know you since we were in diapers." I watched as Liam ran around the field and participated in the drill. "I still say we chloroform the little bastard. Forget the party tonight." But Scott just shook his head and I watched as the girls started their second lap around the field.

Harlow's P.O.V.

"Joan... Jo... I can't..." I gasped out, struggling for breath as we finished our lap. I laid down in the grass and rolled over onto my back. Joan plopped down next to my head and held out my water for me.

"The bells going to ring soon. We need to go get changed." she hauled me up to my feet and practically pushed me in the direction of the school. I quickly changed and ate my half of the orange and dragged myself to the rest of my classes before heading off to ballet with Joan. When we got there we were informed that the list for Clara would be up on the studios website.

"So?" I waited impatiently while I unlocked my car later that night. "Who'd we get?" I leaned against the top of my car and waited. Joan was looking at the list on her phone. She made a face before looking at me. "That bad?" I raised an eyebrow.

"You got Clara!" she started jumping up and down in excitement. I was so surprised that I didn't even say anything. "This," she pointed to her phone. "calls for a celebration."

"You telling my you know of a party tonight and you didn't tell me?" I raised my eyebrows at her. She knew how much I liked to party.

"Not yet, but I'll find one." She winked at me smugly before getting into the passenger seat of my car. An hour later she came sauntering over to my bed and plopped down with a big smile on her face.

"Found a party?" I assumed, lifting my head off my bed. The workouts Joan had us doing left me sore and achy all the time now. Ballet didn't help any.

"Yup. You're friends with Lydia Martin, right?"

"Well," I sat up and looked over at her, thinking. "Stiles so friends with her, and I'm sorta friends with Stiles... I guess that makes me her friend. Kinda. Why?"

"Because," she crawled even closer to me. "there's a party at her lake house tonight. You ready?" I looked down at my outfit and decided that we couldn't go to the party dressed in leotards and tights so I quickly threw on a sleeveless t-shirt that covered my butt and decided to skip pants and just go for some floral lace tights and a red lacy bra and boots that came just under my knees. Jo wore my black spaghetti strap dress with my floral jacket and red pumps that match my bra.

Twenty minutes later we were pulling up into the drive of Lydia Martins lake house and I parked my car in the grass. When I looked around at the group of people gathering I groaned and turned to Joan. "Are we at a... freshman party?"

"I never specified what kind of party it is. Besides, there's alcohol. So does it really matter?"

"I guess not." I shrugged and made my way into the lake house and was involved into a swarm of sweaty drunk freshman and was struggling to make it to the kitchen where a keg was being delivered. Calories from alcohol don't count, I told myself in a chant.

"Look," Joan pointed over my shoulder. "alcohol." She grabbed a couple red solo cups and filled them up with beer holding it out for me to take but when I started to reach from it she pulled it back. "How much you drink tonight will determine how much you can eat for the rest of the week and how much you workout. You understand?"

"Got it." I said, grabbing the cup from her hand before she could deny me the alcohol. I downed half the cup. Somewhere around drink number two(... or was it three) Joan took off up the stairs with some freshman boy I had never seen before. Unfortunately She's kinda a south drunk. And because she's underweight she kinda a lightweight. However, on the bright side of her slutting it up with some random guy is that I can lie about the number of drinks I inhale.

Halfway through my fourth drink when my cup was half empty, social anxiety started to set in and I decided that I needed to get the hell out of the house. I weaved through the crowded house of freshman till I was standing outside. I walked around to the back of the house to find it less crowded than the front. I stood there for a minute before I saw a figure running through the woods at a crazy speed.

And of course, in my drunken state I decided that I would try my hand at following whoever it was. "Liam! Liam wait!" I was too far gone in my drunkness to recognize Scott's freaked out voice cutting through the darkness of the woods. By the time I realized that it was Scott's voice calling out I was being tackled to the ground by who I assumed was the Liam kid that he was looking for.

Liam used his body to press me into the earth beneath us as he bared his fangs and snapped at me. His gold eyes cut through the darkness. I gasped at his changed form and I froze. He snarled at me and snapped a few more times so I did the only thing I could think of.

"Scott! Scott help!" I heard the sound of feet slapping against the ground. The sound getting louder as he got closer.

"Harlow!" he called back. Liam's head snapped up at the sound of Scott's voice before scrambling off of me and scurrying away from me. Scott crouched down where I was still laying on the ground, propped up on my elbows. "Are you okay?" He asked, frantically. I tried to speak nut I just ended up stumbling over my worlds. "Harlow!" he screamed in my face. "Are you hurt?" I shook my head to let him know that no, I wasn't hurt.

"I'm fine. Go." I ushered him in the direction the Liam had taken off in. Knowing that something was clearly horribly wrong. I couldn't help but think about the conversation I had with Joan over coffee this morning.

"I don't know." I pulled the skirt off my head. "Like I said the other day, I think he's onto me. And he helped me with the studio but... There's just something about his group of friends. Like they're hiding something. And I have a feeling that I don't want to know what it is."

SCOTT'S P.O.V.

As much as I didn't want to leave a totally freaked out Harlow alone in the woods on the night of the full moon but I didn't see much of a choice so I took off in the direction that I saw Liam go and I followed his scent. "What did you do to me!?" Liam screamed at me.

"Liam..."

"This is your fault. It's all your fault! This is your fault!" he repeated. It reminded my of the car he ruined and carved 'this is your fault' into the side of it. I suddenly heard the very distinctive whooshing sound of a arrow slicing through the air. A bright light erupted from the flash bolt arrow.

Liam cried out and shielded his eyes before taking off again. I looked up I'm the direction the arrow had come from and was relieved with what, or rather, who. I saw. "How'd you know?" I asked Mr. argent who was standing on higher ground than I.

"I got your text." he looked tired. I so desperately wanted to ask how he was doing but that would have to wait. "There's a clearing just north of here. All you have to do is corral him there. The rest is taken care of."

"What are you going to do to him?" he had started to turn away from me but paused.

"He's your Beta, Scott. The question is, what are you going to do?"

"He won't listen to me." I told him honestly.

"He will if you start using your own words." with that piece of advice Argent shooed me away.

HARLOW'S P.O.V.

It took me a couple minutes of freaking out while still on the ground before I could stifle my fear a little and shakily get to my feet. I grabbed a tree nearby to steady myself. I used a dirty hand to push my hair out of my face. What the hell just happened?

After the whole thing with Liam I sobered up pretty quickly and decided that it as about time to drag Jo away from what ever dude she banged tonight and get us both home. I practically had to drag her into my house and dropped her onto my bed. I kicked off my boots and quickly exchanged my dirty cloths for one of my dad's old tee shirts and crawled up into bed behind her, wrapping my arms around her acting as the big spoon.

That night I dreamt of werewolves.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer- I own nothing but Harlow and Joan

"I'm going to fail." I repeated for what felt like the millionth time that day. I felt totally unprepared for the PSAT's and I had been studying for them for them since 9th grade.

"Har, calm down and take a deep breath." I did as Joan instructed and sucked in a big breath, not letting it out again till she started to speak again. "You've got this. You've been studying for this for years. All your hard work will pay off. Just focus alright?" I nodded my head and watched as Stiles and his friends walked in and took their seat in front of us. Stiles looked back at me.

"We really need to talk." he whispered loudly. I shook my head at him. We still hadn't talked about what had happened the previous weekend at the lake house. I watched as passed out test booklets and I watched as Stiles opened the cover page.

"Please do not open the test booklet until you are instructed." Stiles quickly closed the booklet and centered it on his desk, as if he never touched it. "This test is two hours and ten minutes long. There will be two twenty-five minute critical reading sections, two twenty-five minute math sections and an essay writing portion that will last thirty minutes." he turned to . "There's supposed to be two teachers."

"I know, It's Coach. He's not exactly punctual." she grabbed her phone from the desk. "Let me try him again." before leaving the room. I wasn't aware of when came back or what she said to or what his response was. I felt the room spinning around me. I knew it wasn't a panic attack because my heart wasn't beating like crazy. I knew that it was more likely because I hadn't eaten in like two days. I blinked and took a couple deep breaths, trying to get the dizzies to go away.

When it didn't go away I turned to Joan to ask for help but black dots overtook my vision until it was totally black. I felt it when my body hit the cold, hard, dirty floor. It slowly shocked me back into consciousness. "Harlow, are you alright?" hurried over to help me up.

"Yeah, sorry. Just got a little dizzy." Stiles had been making comments about my weight lately. I was two pounds away from my goal weight, and it was showing. She gently took my wrist in her hands and turned it over, pushing my hoodie sleeve up.

"Harlow, how long have you had these?" I shrugged my shoulders.

"It wasn't there this morning."

"Um... everyone stay in your seats. I'll be right back." she left the room and a few seconds latter we heard loud shouts from the hall and Scott and his friends all got up and went into the hall. I got up to follow but Stiles pushed me back down in my seat and gave me a firm 'stay', before following his friends.

"Go." I told Joan. I knew that if I wanted to know anything I would have to rely on her. Shortly after everyone was ushered back into the classroom. I didn't exactly find it odd that Stiles came to sit next to me but I was surprised to find that his friends followed him and were sitting in and on the desks around us.

"Guess someone forgot to eat their wheaties today, huh?" Joan came over to me and kneeled down in front of me. She put the back of her hand to my forehead then moved it to my cheek.

"Give her some breathing space, guys. She's feeling really warm."

"Bet they're thinking smallpox." Stiles whispered to the group. I looked at him like he something on his face.

"Not likely. Smallpox was eradicated world wide in 1979. We've managed to completely eradicate two viruses in history. The other was Rinderpest... it killed cows." I mumbled the last part but I knew that it was still loud enough for them to hear.

"So we should be comforted my that, right?"

"Unless it's something worst." we all turned to look at . I scoffed.

"Whatever it is, they're taking it pretty seriously. There's a lot of cars and trucks out there. Your dads with them." Malia told us. I assumed that she was using whatever supernatural power to hear she had.

"Is she one of you?" I asked Scott.

"Sorta..."

"Great! Sorta. What the hell does that even mean?"

"I don't think right now is the time to talk about this, do you?" I was the first to get my blood drawn since I was the first to show symptoms. I was supposed to go to quarantine but they said I could use the restroom first. But when I walked down the hall to the girls room, the door was locked. I tried every girls room on that floor to find them all locked. I moved onto the boys and when I only found one unlocked I groaned. The locker room. Ewe. It smelled.

I heard some banging around then I heard a sound that took me back to the night of the party when Liam was on top of me, growling in my face. But it didn't sound like Liam. I turned the corner to find Scott leaning on the wall. "Scott?" I tested. I didn't know how to approach this situation. "Are you wolfing out?" I kept my distance, unsure what else to do. I leaned my back against a different wall, keeping his back to me.

"Get Stiles." as soon as the words left his mouth I took off back down the hall towards the classroom where I had left the rest of the group.

"Stiles!" I called, entering the room. "It's Scott. Come on." If I didn't need to pee so badly still, I would have just sent them on their way, but I had to pee. Whenever I came out of the stall, was looking at an irritated Malia.

"I can't make them go back." she held up her hands with extended claws.

"Obviously the virus is affecting the two of you in a way it wont hit any human being." my energy was quickly fading and I was starting to feel really sick. I laid down on the bench and wondered how many naked, sweaty butts have sat where my head currently was.

"You guys have to stay out of sight. We have to keep you quarantined from the quarantine." Stiles looked over to me. "Speaking of being quarantined..." I rolled my eyes and rolled over to my stomach, laying my head on my arms. Thank God I wore jeans and a hoodie.

"I had to pee." was all I said.

"Where are we going to put them? What if they get violent, like o a full moon?"

"A classroom isn't going to hold us." Malia pointed out.

"What about the basement?"

"Are you aware of how many ways out there are down there? You guys need like a giant cage with steal walls and a lock. A giant ass lock." I mumbled. I couldn't tell if I was feeing worst or the same as earlier. I cracked open my eyes to look at them and they were just staring at me.

"She's right..." Stiles pointed out. "the Vault." he looked up to Scott.

"Dude," Scotts eyes lit up. "The Hale Vault. The Hales always have an escape route. Like their house."

"Which means, what?" I sat up to look at them. "There's another way in?"

"Exactly!" Stiles snapped and pointed his finger at me.

"So who are the Hales?" I asked as they unrolled the blue prints to the school on the table five minutes later.

"That," Stiles pointed his finger at me again, "is a very good question with a very complicated answer."

"Right." I mumbled as we looked down at the blue prints. He pointed to where the front of the school was.

"This is where the school sign is, so the vaults got to be right there." he pointed to another spot on the print, near the original spot.

"So it's probably in the basement, right here." I pointed next to his finger. When I got weird looks from them I shrugged. "I like mystery novels." I explained.

"She's right. It's probably in the west corridor..." he trailed off and everyone looked to him. "Whoa." he started to fall and hands reached out to catch him but he caught himself on the table.

"It's happening to you too." pointed out. "You're getting sick, you all are."

"I don't fell sick." Kira told her dad.

"I think it's affecting you differently, neurological. Look at your test answers." he held out her test sheet from the test. Her answers were bubbled in all over the place.

I convinced them to let me go with them to the basement rather than going back to the quarantine. "Hey, guys... over here." Stiles pointed at a wall. "Look at the crack in the wall. It's like the entrance outside, it only opens with claws. Anyones claws right?" Stiles and Scott exchanged looks.

"Malia, can you try?" Scott asked her.

"Why me?" she looked confused.

"I don't have control." he held up his hands to show the lack of claws.

"Okay, but first I want to know what you've been hiding." the boys exchanged looks again. Oh yeah. These boys were definitely hiding something. "How much?"

"How much what?" it was the boys turn to look confused.

"How much am I worth?"

"Four million." Scott answered. I figured that I would ask he millions of questions I had when... or if we survived whatever the hell this was.

"Are you okay?" Stiles asked his girlfriend.

"Yeah," she looked totally fine. "Scott's twenty-five, Kira's six. They'll take you out way before they take out me."

"That's progress." Stiles said a couple times. If I thought I was confused by her behavior. We walked into The Vault. "You know this is where it all started. This is where the money was." he pointed to a smaller vault. "117 million in bear bonds." my eyes got huge.

"Holy shit, what?"

"How do you even cash bear bonds?" Kira asked.

"Banks." I told her. "But it's getting harder because they're practically extinct."

"And they just let it sit here, collecting dust." I sat down, leaning against some shelves, opposite of Stiles and Malia. "Do you know how many problems that money could solve?"

"For you?" we were all sitting at this point. Malia laid down, with her head in his lap. He ran his fingers through her hair.

"Me. My dad... The Eichen House and MRI bills are crushing him."

"Eichen House? MRI's? Someone please tell me what the hell is up with you guys.. or actually, wait till this whole thing is over. I don't think I could actually follow along with a conversation, right now."

"My mom does this thing, she writes down all the items in our budget, and how much they cost, then she adds them all up and figures out how long until... we lose the house." This conversation was depressing me. I was starting to feel worst so I laid down on the dirty cold floor.

"Hey, Harlow. You're looking like shit over there." I had no clue who said it but I pulled my hood so far over my eyes it covered my face and flipped off the air. Stiles and Scott got up and walked over to the door of the vault and were whispering for a few minutes before Stiles returned to Malia's side.

"Where are you going?" she asked him.

"Whatever's happening, it's much worst for you means it's not just people getting sick. It's another assassin." she shivered and he started to take off his jacket.

"Here." he put it over her shoulders and wrapped it around her.

"You're coming back right?" it was a cute picture and if I weren't feeling so sick I would have smiled.

"Yeah, I'd never leave you behind." and then I did smile. He moved just outside the now open door.

"Wait," I called, stopping them from closing us in again. "I'm coming too." when I got looks of protest I shakily got to my feet. "You are not leaving a human in here with three out of control supernaturals."

"You're right." Stiles agreed. "Let's go." I followed him out and back to the main part of the school. I was still feeling like shit but was starting to feel a little better. I knew Stiles wasn't feeling 100% either. He still had a thin layer of sweat covering his face. While we were walking down the hall, popped out of nowhere.

"Harlow, you're supposed to be in quarantine. And Stiles, you're not looking so good either. Maybe you two should go lay down.

"We're okay." he reassured her. "Have you seen ?"

"Yeah he's fine. He's helping other students." Stiles looked over to where Coach was laying in a tent looking thing.

"Is Coach the only adult that got sick?" she nodded at him.

"As far as I know."

"We'll be right back." he grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards Coaches office with him. "Look around. Let me know if anything catches your eye." we started going through the piles of stuff on his desk. "Wait, check this out." he picked up Coaches orange mug. There was an ink finger print on it. "It's ."

"What?" I wasn't following.

" . He's the one that infected us."

"I was wondering how that idiot got sick. I'm also wondering where your friends are. Since in order to get paid by the benefactor, I need to have proof that they're dead."

"Visual confirmation." Stiles realized.

"Exactly. Harlow, I wasn't aware you were part of this."

"I'm not." I looked at the gun in his hands. "I kinda got roped into it. I actually have no clue whats going on." he started screwing on a silencer to the gun.

"Let's go, you two." we walked into the locker room before anyone spoke again. "Still a bit feverish, the two of you. But you guys should know something, the virus doesn't kill humans, you two will get better. So don't you think you should tell me where they are? Shouldn't someone get to live?" he held the gun up at eye level to Stiles. I put myself in front of Stiles. Even though I was wearing heeled boots, I was still a few inches shorter than him.

"I think I saw them in the library." he told him. I knew that he was trying to appear confident.

"Or it might have been the cafeteria." I played along.

"It was definitely one of those two." he finished.

"I'm going to give you two to the count of three, then I'm going to kill you." until that moment, the gun had been pointing at Stiles, but he moved it to point at me, now. "Both of you... starting with her."

"You think you can scare us? Here's a little secret. I'm not scared to die." I looked him dead in the eye while I spoke. My voice even.

"Yeah, but it'll tear him apart to watch you die protecting his friends. Lets start the count down, shall we? One..." I felt Stiles put his hand on my shoulder. "Two." the cold metal of the gun touched my forehead. I squeezed my eyes shut. I was ready. When the gun shot rang through the air, Stiles grabbed me and pulled me back into him. His heart was beating so hard and fast that I could feel it beating into my back. I opened my eyes to see a tall man with a gun in his hands.

"Where the hell did you come from?" Stiles asked, still panicking. Blood was dripping down both our faces. There were red splatters on his white shirt. I was tankful that my hoodie was black.

"Stiles, listen. I got a call from Melissa. I don't know what it means. She said that there's an antidote. It's in the vault, reishi mushrooms."

"Wait, what in a vault?" I knew that it was the shock from everything that just happened that he was probably in shock.

"It's in a jar on one of the shelves. She said to tell Scott it's in the vault."

"You go tell Scott. I need to find Jo," I told him.

"Okay." he took off running while rubbing the blood off his face.

"You a friend of Scott's?" the guy asked.

I shrugged. "Kinda. More Stiles' friend. Who are you?"

"Scott's dad." I raised my eyebrows.

"Oh. Thanks for saving us." he didn't say 'you're welcome' or anything like that. He simply said,

"You should go find your friend." I nodded and and walked around him, leaving the way Stiles had just moments before. I found a clean rag and used it to get the blood off my face. I found the 'tent' that Joan was in and sat next to her on the cot.

"Hey. You okay?" I asked her.

"I'm fine, now. Why do you have blood all over your face?" she took the rag from my hands and started to get rid of the rest of the blood.

"Don't ask." I mumbled. "What do you say to a movie day when they let us out of here?"

"Okay, but no Star Trek." I scoffed at her.

"But..."

"And nothing black and white."

"Fine."

"One more?" I asked, four movies later.

"Nah. I have to get home. My mom hasn't been too thrilled that I've pretty much spent all my time with you. She wants to have dinner with me." I groaned at the thought of not having her here with me.

"I have dinner with mom tomorrow night." she put all her stuff in her bag and slipped her shoes on.

"Just take it easy. And remember, you're almost at your goal weight." she slipped her jacket on. "Come on, walk me to the door." we took the stairs two at a time and I nearly tripped down the last couple. I opened the door and jumped. Stiles was on the other side of the door, getting ready to knock.

"I'll see you tomorrow." she said, before taking off down the street towards her house.

"Malia broke up with me today." he was looking down and I couldn't see his whole face.

"I had a gun pressed to my forehead." he looked up at me. I couldn't tell if he had been crying or if he was trying to hold it back. I was leaning against the doorframe and smiled. The smile wasn't long lived though. A strangled sob like sound left my mouth and Stiles stepped forward. he rapped his arms around me and let me cry for a few minutes. When I pulled away I realized that he too had been crying. I moved aside so that he could walk into the house.

"I don't know why I came here." I didn't feel insulted. I knew that he just didn't know what he wanted. I smiled and pushed my hair out of my face.

"Up stairs, second door on the right." he looked confused but didn't protest as I pushed him to the stairs. When he started to walk up them I went into the kitchen. I grabbed a couple sodas, one diet, one regular. I also grabbed a bag of some sort of snack food my mom always keeps in the pantry.

"Do you want to pick the movie?" when I walked in he was going through my books. I set the drinks and snack down on my night stand. I pointed to the bookshelf that only held movies and music CD's. "Jo and I were having a movie night but she had to leave."

"You have all the Star Trek and Star Wars movies?" I walked over to him and nodded. I had a whole shelf dedicated to those movies.

"Yeah. My dad and I used to have movie marathons when my mom would work all the time... kinda like she is now." I mumbled the last part.

"Let's watch this." he pulled off a movie from the shelf. " my mom would watch this with me before she died whenever I was sad." I smiled at him.

"My dad used to watch it with me when I was sick." I put the movie into the player and turned the TV back on. I plopped down on my stomach and he sat down next to me on the bed.

"You know we can watch this down stairs if you're too uncomfortable."

"Nah, this is fine." he rubbed the palm of his hands on his thighs. I crawled over and grabbed the sodas, giving him one, and tossing him the bag of munchies.

"I didn't know what you would like so I just grabbed what my mom always snacks on."

"You going to eat some of this?" he pointed the open end of the bag towards me.

"No thanks, I'm not hungry." he sighed but reached into the bag anyways.

"You really should eat something, after all thats happened today."

"Or we could talk about Malia."

"Or we could watch this movie." it wasn't till half way through the movie that Stiles was finally relaxing and laid down on his stomach next to me. When the movie was over he looked at his phone. "It's almost midnight. I should get going. Is your mom going to be home soon?" I shook my head.

"She's pulling an all nighter. There's something wrong with the insurance people and they're trying to figure out what to do."

"She left you alone after what you went through today?"

"I may have down played it a little."

"My couch is open if you want?"

"Thanks but Jo is just a couple houses down. But if I need to I'll call you." I reassured him. He slipped on his shoes and jacket and grabbed his keys from my desk. He followed me out the room and down the stairs.

"Remember, you came here for a reason, tonight. I just want you to know that when you need to talk, I'm here." he smiled at me and walked down my porch. I waited till he was in his Jeep and was pulling down the drive, waving goodbye, before I shut the door.

Why had he come here?

Thanks for reading please let me know what you think and how you would like to see this all play out!

XOXOX


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